Getting Around Cambridge

Cambridge is committed to designing our city to help people to get around without driving, with an emphasis on pedestrian friendly intersections, bicycle lanes, traffic calming, and public transit.

Cambridge is flat and compact, with a mixture of housing, retail, and other businesses and institutions, making it is easy for most people to make at least some of their trips without driving.

As roads are reconstructed, we look for ways to make them complete streets-- streets that work well for all modes of travel. You will see facilities that encourage walking, such as sidewalks on both sides of virtually all streets, short blocks, frequent opportunities to cross the street, and signal timing that favors pedestrians. You'll see many bicycle facilities, including bike lanes, bicycle facilities separated from moving traffic ("cycle tracks"), and plentiful bicycle parking. Traffic calming projects are designed to keep automobile speeds down making our streets safer for all users.

Efforts to make our city easier to navigate without driving have paid off. About 30% of our households do not own cars, relying on other options that the city provides. Many other households do not use their cars on a daily basis. Cambridge residents are among the least car-dependent commuters in the country. Among small cities we have the highest percentage of residents commuting by means other than driving. Counter to the trend elsewhere in the state, car ownership and trips have declined in Cambridge over the last ten years.

We have a robust program to make it safe and convenient for you to get around town. These programs were created to improve quality of life, meet our climate goals, and preserve our roadway capacity and parking supply.